Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down | Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence FROM L'ALLEGRO. Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And in thy right hand lead with thee To live with her, and live with thee, And ever, against eating cares, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, Untwisting all the chains that tie That Orpheus' self may heave his head Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free These delights if thou cans't give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live. A BOOK NOT A DEAD THING. DENY not but that it is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are. Nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creatureGod's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself-kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a life whereof, perhaps, there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men ; how we spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed-sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to a whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal essence, the breath of reason itself-slays an immortality rather than a life. Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer, that often warn'd them thence ; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No mighty trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale eyed priest from the prophetic cell. Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them The lonely mountains o'er go. The shepherds on the lawn, Or e'er the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they, than That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent: With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The Nymphs, in twilight shade of tangled thickets, mourn. In consecrated earth, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy And on the holy hearth, keep. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook; Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took : The air, such pleasures loathe to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum. Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint. In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. But see, the Virgin bless'd Hath laid her Babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending, And all about the courtly stable Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable. THE DEPARTURE FROM EDEN. O spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard, The Archangel stood, and from the other hill Whereat In either hand the hastening angel caught They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld soon: The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. ALEXANDER POPE. THE POET OF SOCIETY. "If Pope must yield to other poets in point of fertility of fancy, yet in point of propriety, closeness, and elegance of diction he can yield to none."-Joseph Warton. HE merits of Pope's works have long been a fertile subject of critical discussion. If his "rhymes too often supply the defects of his reasons," it is nevertheless true that few poets have furnished so many well-known lines which express in apt and concise language an elevating, philosophic thought. He was so deformed that he was known by the nickname of "The Interrogation Point," and so small that he used a high chair at table; so weak and sickly that he must be continually tied up in bandages; and so sensitive to cold that he was always wrapped in furs and flannels, and encased his feet in three pairs of stockings. But his dress was fastidious and his manners elegant, though he must continually bear the coarse jests about his afflictions which the rude manners of the time allowed to pass as wit. Pope's sickly youth prevented his being educated like other boys, and his training was received at home and was very irregular. Before he was twelve years old he had written a number of poems, most of which he afterward destroyed. "As yet a child, and all unknown to fame, I lisped in numbers and the numbers came." He had already published his "Pastorals" and "Messiah," and the "Essay on Criticism," when, in 1713, he took up the study of painting in his native city of London. His eyes failed, however, and he abandoned his purpose of becoming an artist. 66 He now issued proposals for publishing a translation of Homer's Iliad," in six volumes, at a guinea a volume. The project was favorably received, and a large number of copies were subscribed for. The volumes appeared at various times, from 1715 to 1720, and yielded the author a magnificent return, equal to about ninety thousand dollars of our money. He was thus enabled to purchase the lease of an attractive villa at Twickenham, which was his home during his remaining years. He died in 1744, at the age of fifty-six. Beside those already mentioned, his principal works are an "Epistle of Eloise to Abelard," an edition of Shakespeare, a translation of the "Odyssey," "The Dunciad," and the "Essay on Man. "The Dunciad" is a sarcastic reply to a host of critics who had attacked him, and of most of whom the only remembrance is their names preserved in this work, which was said to have fallen among his opponents like an exterminating thunderbolt. ¡OME, then, my Friend, my Genius, come along ; O master of the poet and the song! O! while, along the stream of time, thy name Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? Shall then this verse to future age pretend |